Teacher as Researcher

Library Instruction for ED 690, Spring 2012

Photo by Steven De Polo

Objectives

Develop an awareness of the different library resources available for education research

Generate search terms and organize your search strategy

Become familiar with basic and advanced search features in databases in order to search the journal literature

Library Research Guide• Research guides will help you

choose encyclopedias, databases, journals, and other resources for your education research

• Start at the Library Homepage– http://www.pace.edu/library

• Under “Library Services” click on Research Guides– Choose Education from the Subject

list – Search for or scroll to: “Teacher as

Researcher: Action Research”

Or access the guide directly at: libguides.pace.edu/ActionResearch

Using the Pace Library Catalog• The Pace Library Catalog lists the books, e-books, movies and

other materials owned by the Pace Library

– There are two ways to search the catalog

Classic catalog

Encore

Tips for using Encore to search the catalog

• Start with a broad search• Use the tags on the right to narrow your search • While you’re browsing, you can click on the “Add to List” link to keep track of items you were interested in

• When you find a book that looks interesting, look at the record and click on the relevant subject heading to find more books and materials on that subject

• Use the Request It button to get books from other Pace campuses • Takes 1-2 business days. You will get an e-mail when the book arrives and it

can be picked up at the circulation desk.

• Use the Connect NY button to find resources from other universities • Takes 3-5 business days. You will get an e-mail when the book arrives and it

can be picked up at the circulation desk.

• When you’re in Connect NY (it will open in another tab or window) use the WorldCat link to find books available through InterLibrary Loan

Organizing your search strategy• Sample question: • What factors affect the intrinsic motivation of

socioeconomically challenged middle-school students?

• Step 1: eliminate extraneous words• Step 2: pull out key words

Concept A Concept B Concept C

intrinsic motivation socioeconomically challenged

middle-school students

Organizing your search strategy, cont.

• Step 3: brainstorm synonyms for your key words – Note: you may continue to add synonyms and

subject headings as you search

Using Databases to find Articles

From the library home page, click on Databases: Find an Article

Recommended Databases:Education OtherERIC PsycInfoEducation Abstracts Academic SearchProfessional Development Premier Collection Jstor

Boolean Operators

Boolean Operators & Search Tips

• Use “OR” to connect related or synonymous terms within a single search box, this widens your search

• Parentheses: be sure to group OR terms within parentheses, eg. (“special education” OR “special needs”)

• Use “AND” to narrow search results by combining key concepts – Eg. motivation AND “socioeconomically challenged” AND “middle

school” • Asterisk: retrieves all alternate endings, eg. disab* retrieves disability,

disabled, disabilities, etc. • Quotation marks retrieves that exact phrase, eg. “social media”

Limiting your search

• In Ebsco databases (eg. ERIC and PsycInfo) you can limit your search in 2 ways

From the Advanced After getting Search screen a set of

results

Finding Subject headings in PsycInfo

• To review How and Why to use the Thesaurus in PsycInfo, view this video: – http://tinyurl.com/axvbybr

Finding Full-Text Documents In ERIC, if it is a book, search for the book title in the catalog

to see if the book is available from Pace or Connect NY

For articles (in all databases) use the Search for Article button

Finding Full-Text Documents After clicking Search for Article, if you see:

Click on the

“Article” link

Click on the “ILLiad” link to make

an ILL request

Note: you need a library barcode to create an

InterLibrary Loan account

To get more help • The library home page:

www.pace.edu/library• Use the Ask-a-Librarian

link • Under “Library

Services” – Video tutorials– How do I? – Research Guides

• E-mail Jennifer! jrosenstein@pace.edu

• Stop by or call the reference desk

(the desk under the big Information sign in the middle of the library)

• (212) 346-1331

Quiz Time!

tinyurl.com/ed690mcdermott

Photo by Alberto G.